Making Even Goals
I was at a restaurant downtown sitting near the window with sunlight streaming in as I complained to my mentor how hard everything had been. I told her that I had applied to Harvard and the only question everyone had for me was, “Well, what are you going to do with that? What’s next?”
I hated that question. It sounded like I needed to have a 5-year plan mapped out. My overachieving tendencies made me feel itchy and unsettled because I didn’t have it all figured out. My brain was spinning and the shame was spiraling. I couldn’t see the map. What was the plan? What was I supposed to do?
My mentor stopped me and said, “Stop worrying about the destination. All you need to do is head in the right direction.”
Suddenly, I didn’t need to have it all figured out. I only needed to know what direction I wanted to head.
For the next 3 years, I stopped making SMART goals – and guess, what? I’m still not making SMART goals. Sounds crazy, right? I mean SMART goals are the gold standard of goal attainment, aren’t they?
My problem wasn’t the SMART goals themselves; it was that I was using them to overly focus on my destination.
As a recovering overachiever, my love of SMART goals was one of my favorite drugs. They were my way of taking big dreams and picturing them with vivid intensity and clarity. The problem is, when I was dreaming, I would forget to take into context all the other things in my life and so without meaning to, my SMART plans would start to crowd out the other important things.
So now, my goals are a little less SMART and a lot more EVEN.
SMART goals provide clarity. And things that are clear are attractive to us. When things are clear they often trigger a bias for action. It’s a great hack for motivation. So, we want to keep the clarity. However, we need to be aware that bias for action can be overdone. When clarity gets overly focused on outcomes, our bias for action can quickly turn into unwarranted urgency. Motivation from urgency burns bright and fast, but it does not last. Which is why a lot of new goals fail. So, instead of urgency, we want momentum and when we choose to focus more on direction than destination, we build sustainable momentum.
For my goals now, I take what works from the SMART goals, but I leave them more open ended. This leaves space for reality to fit within my dreams – and it makes major growth far more sustainable.
Here’s how you can make your own goals more EVEN:
First, make goals around who you want to become not what you want to accomplish.
Instead of setting a goal like, I want to lose 10-15 lbs (which is only outcome focused), choose a title or role you want to grow into. For instance, I want to become someone who values her health.
If you stay with a goal that is only outcome/destination focused, you are already telling yourself that this is not a permanent change. This means that if I reach that 15 lbs of weight loss, I check the box and stop doing the habits that got me there… and then that weight comes right back.
So, instead, when we say, “I want to become…” we are cuing to ourselves that we are looking at becoming someone different and that means the habits you choose will be things you want to keep forever -not things you do just until you hit a specific number. (And guess what? If you do it right, that outcome you wanted at the beginning will happen naturally)
Once you’ve determined your role, think of small daily habits that can add up to that role in major ways.
Looking at our earlier example, if I’m wanting to become someone who cares about her health, I’m going to get specific about a few small things. For instance, I want to weight train 3x’s a week. That’s an easy SMART goal. I can track it and hold myself accountable to that.
There’s another goal I have too, but I’m not as clear on it. I want to get my sugar cravings under control. I know that if I jump to an outcome focused goal with this right now, such as limiting myself to just one treat a day, I’ll fail. Mostly because there is no way I want to keep that goal for the rest of my life. So what do I do? Past me would have dropped this because it wasn’t clear enough and that makes it too hard to even think about – meaning I’m doomed to want sugar all day all the time.
Current me, is going to make this into a process-based goal (or in other words, a direction based goal) so that I can enjoy the journey of figuring out what works. For instance, I can do something like creating a weekly sugar challenge to experiment with what may or may not work in the long term. I don’t know how long it will take to find what works and I don’t know what the end solution will be. What I do know is that this will get me headed in the right direction.
Next, think about how your goal role fits with the other roles in your life.
Let’s be honest, we all wear a lot of hats. If your new role can’t mix with your current ones, it will fail. I can’t just be someone who values her health. I also need to be a mom who values her health, and an entrepreneur who values her health.
Take a moment to picture what those new daily habits look like in the context of your other roles as well. Where are the resistance points? How do others that share these roles work through those resistance points? Is that doable for you? Get yourself to a place where you can clearly picture what those 1 or 2 habits will look like once they’ve been connected with all the roles you hold.
Your goals need to fit within the context of your life – otherwise there will always be tension, pressure, and unnecessary stress.
Last, but never least, build-in regular check-ins.
Have you ever driven in a new place without a map or a GPS and gotten hopelessly lost? We don’t start out believing we’ll get lost. And even as we make those first few wrong turns, we convince ourselves that we’re still headed the right way… that is until it is obvious we’re not. If you’re like me, sometimes it takes waiting until it’s obvious I’m lost before I’ll finally open the map back up.
Don’t wait until you’re hopelessly lost to finally check in. Any good growth goal can easily get lost in the twists and turns of life. Think of checking in as consulting your GPS – and do it often. If you make a wrong turn, a check-in makes it really easy to recalibrate.
One of my favorite check-in options is to choose to follow the 2-day rule. If you miss doing a daily habit once, that’s ok. You can still be headed in the right direction. If you miss it twice in a row, you’ve turned your car around. You’re no longer headed in the direction you want to grow in. So, let a 2-day miss be your checkpoint to signal to yourself that you need to take another look at what you’ve planned and adjust if you need to.
Other check-in options can be to have a coach, therapist, or friend who you chat with regularly (say once a week) and can help you process how your goals are going. Often, we can’t see context on our own. Having another person can help us catch what’s happening in our blind spots.
When making SMART goals, it is easy to get stuck seeing only yourself as the person who is involved in accomplishing your goals. An Even goal, on the other hand, knows that there’s no reason to tackle your dreams alone.
So here’s the summary for more Even goals:
Make goals for who you want to become not what you want to accomplish
Choose a couple of small daily habits that can add up in big ways
Check those habits with the other roles you hold in your life
Build in check-in points (to keep from getting lost)
Remember, it’s not the speed of your road trip that counts. It’s the fact that you’re headed where you want to go.
Thanks for reading with me today. I hope this January brings you lots of sustainable growth.
